The Legends of Forever by Barry Lyga (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

vibrational frequencies of the universe sang in unison. He plucked at the strings of reality and a breach opened before him—

And then the breach closed on its own, and he heard himself say, “So, in other words, the TV Barry Allen screwed up, messed with history, then re-messed with history, and we’re the ones who get punished for it? Not cool.”

He decided to breach out of the prison. Focusing, he opened a breach—

And it closed by itself. To his astonishment he was speaking again. “. . . messed with history, then re-messed with history, and we’re the ones who get punished for it? Not cool.”

What was happening to him? Somehow he was reliving the same few seconds over and over again. Opening the breach, watching it close, jumping back a few seconds to do it all over again.

“I have been waiting for you to exploit your powers,” the Time Trapper said, standing motionless. “Now that you have done so, I am able to manipulate your personal temporality. Your vibrational frequency was closed to me until you projected it into the fabric of the universe. Now it is mine to control. And so I have trapped you in the same fifteen seconds, where you will use your breaching abilities over and over again, allowing me to tap into that power and use it to enhance my speedster-driven machinery. Due to your ability to perceive alternate timelines, I suspect you are able to experience and recall these fifteen seconds each time.” For the first time, the Time Trapper moved, raising one purple-cloaked arm to gesture non-committally with his right hand. “I surmise that this will drive you irretrievably insane in short order.”

Cisco yearned to protest, to scream, to holler. But he had no control over his body or anything tangible at all. He was cut loose from time, tethered to himself, but helpless, able only to observe as the universe in his very specific area rewound itself.

He could say nothing to the Time Trapper. Nothing save, “So, in other words, the TV Barry Allen screwed up, messed with history, then re-messed with history, and we’re the ones who get punished for it? Not cool.”

And then open a breach.

And watch it close.

And then do it again.

And again.

And again.

17

Joe paced impatiently as Bert Larvan—the brother of the Bug-Eyed Bandit—perched on a stool in the Bunker and peered through a microscope at the bee Joe had recovered from the bodega. Dinah, Dig, and Rene had not been sanguine about allowing a civilian (and one related to a super villain, to boot) into the Green Arrow’s hidden lair, but Joe had prevailed. They needed someone to examine the bee and reverse-engineer its signal ASAP, and with all the usual geniuses out of town, Bert Larvan was their best bet.

“The swarm is 20 percent bigger, according to this thing,” Wild Dog said, gesturing somewhat laconically at one of the computer displays. “How big’s it gotta get before we get serious and call in the people with powers?”

Dinah snorted in offense. But Joe took Rene’s point. Dinah’s Canary Cry was a great power, sure, but basically useless against a swarm of bees located thousands of feet straight up. They needed a Flash or a Vibe or an Atom or someone who could get up into the air and deactivate the swarm.

None of those folks were available to them. They had Bert Larvan.

“Anything, Bert?” Joe asked, ending his pacing right behind Larvan. “Anything at all?”

“Detective West,” Bert said testily, not even bothering to look up from the microscope, “you can have me do this job properly or you can have me do it not at all. Which do you prefer?”

Grinding his teeth together, Joe stepped away a few paces. Holding his tongue was not his forte, but Larvan was doing them—and the world—a big favor. He’d put aside his animosity toward the police in order to figure out how to help stop the swarm and capture Ambush Bug. That bought him a little consideration for his . . . prickly personality.

“I say we find one of those jetpack things,” Wild Dog said nonchalantly, “and fly up there with a flamethrower and BWOOOOOSHHHH!” He mimed spraying fire indiscriminately in a wide arc.

“Great idea,” Dig deadpanned. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Hundreds of thousands of melted, flaming, sizzling little bees dropping out of the sky,” Dinah added. “That’s not a problem.”

Rene shrugged. “I don’t see anyone else coming up with anything.”

Bert Larvan cleared his throat loudly and significantly. The message was clear: Everyone shut up. I’m working.

Joe huddled the four of them together at Rene’s seat near the console. “Look,” he said, his voice low, “we’ve got Bert and that’s about all we can count on right now.”

Rene chuckled mirthlessly. “You really think we can count on him? He hates the cops for arresting his sister.”

“If there’s one thing that drives him,” Joe pointed out, “it’s that love for his sister. He can’t stand that Ambush Bug is using her bees for his own purposes. If nothing else, we can trust Bert to help stop the Bug.”

Rene shrugged.

Dig folded his arms over his chest. “When you’ve got one option, it’s automatically your best option,” he told Rene.

“Whatever.” Wild Dog leaned back in his chair and pretended to check the computer again.

Dinah pulled Joe aside. “Cop to cop, Joe: You trust him?”

Joe quirked his lips. “I don’t know for sure. I’ve seen informants suddenly lose their nerve, undercover agents go bad . . .” He winced as he said it—Dinah’s own boyfriend had been an undercover cop in Central City and eventually turned into the murdering Vigilante. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She brushed it off. “Ancient history.” Her eyes flicked to Larvan’s workbench. “Let’s just keep an eye on this guy, OK?”

“Hello, my beauty . . .”

Bert Larvan squinted into the microscope as he gently peeled back the artificial exoskeletal material constituting the shell of the bee Joe West had retrieved from the bodega. It was a near-perfect replica of Megachile pluto, the largest of the Indonesian resin bees, once thought